2014 Tesla Model S: headlights failing or too dim

Filed Feb 12, 2026 · Steering · 180,000 miles · WA · crash · 1 injury

The contact owned a 2014 Tesla Model S. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed on the highway, the vehicle exited into a tunnel. The contact stated that his hands were on the steering wheel and that the steering wheel did not move; however, the vehicle inadvertently made a sharp left turn, and the passenger-side headlight struck the tunnel wall. The vehicle spun rapidly, and the contact's head snapped to the right. The air bags did not deploy. The contact received medical attention for whiplash. Police were made aware of the crash but did not arrive on the scene. There was no police report filed. The contact pulled over on the shoulder of the road and then restarted the vehicle. The vehicle had driven for a mile when the tire pressure dropped to zero. The vehicle was towed to the residence and then to a tow yard, where it was deemed totaled by the insurance company. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 180,000.

Filed Jan 16, 2021 · Acceleration, Electrical · 86,000 miles · TX

Total loss of display in the middle console keeps going black, total loss of turn signals, suspension control, heater controls, de fog and de ice, no rear camera, no cruise control, high low beams,no ability to use fog lamps. Plus many more things too numerous to list. I took it to service dept and they did a temp fix for $150 but told me it will go out again and it did the very next morning. Something to do what's called the mcu memory failing. Its gone dark on several occasions many different dates. There is no way to know when it will do it again. Makes the vehicle in my estimation more likely to get into a crash

Filed Aug 29, 2020 · 68,000 miles · OR

Repeat failures of the center console screen and complete replacement of the instrument panel. Center console screen has had issues since purchase with going to black screen and rebooting. Now the screen will not reboot and all safety and convienience features are disabled. No rear view camera, side and back detection cameras, AC, stereo, headlight, braking function controls, I have a call into tesla, but no response so far. I am afraid that I will not be able to charge the car, this has happened to many owners. This is a known issue and tesla refuses to recall. I will probably need to replace the mcu at a cost of $2500.00, this on top of replacing a defective instrument panel (it delaminated) at a cost of $750.00 (it was $1500.00, tesla reduced to $750.00 and demanded that I say that I was fully satisfied with the repair prior to the work or they would not reduce the fee). My vehicle is out of warranty by less than 7k miles. The insturument panel was at less than 500 miles out of warranty. The rebooting of the center console screen happens when driving and has been occuring since purchase. Tesla stated it was a need to reset because the car was processing too much data. They would tell me to erase all navigation data, clear allt he internet history and set the internet to www.google.com. Annoying, dangerous and ineffective. Please do something about this!!! I know you have received extensive complaints over the course of years. I have attached a photo of the instument panel that was replaced. Delamination is a bubble pattern that spreads across the screen making it difficult or impossible to read.. I have literally replaced almost every moving part on this car (drive train, windshield wiper motor, door handles, trunk fittings, head and tail lights due to condensation, continuous rattles. Some of these were covered under warranty, some not. Ugh!

Filed Aug 4, 2020 · Electrical, Engine · 49,000 miles · CA

Total main computer failure (mcu) - many safety features were unaccessible and not available including but not limited to turn signals and hazard lights stop working, the settings for autopilot and driving are gone, the suspension settings, the ability to turn on headlights manually, ability to manually lock and unlock the vehicle, navigation, A/C, sunroof controls, etc.

Filed Aug 2, 2020 · Electrical · 140,851 miles · NY

Media control unit mcu failure. No aeb (advanced emergency braking) no controlling suspension height no manual control of headlight lights no blinker sounds steering mode defaults to some setting (e.g. If I have it set to sport, during reboot of mcu is changes to standard or comfort, not sure but I can feel the steering wheel take less effort to turn than my normal sport mode) no HVAC (heat, cool, vent) no defrosters no seat heaters no steering wheel heaters no radio/streaming no app connectivity to control the car no ability to see the car charge status from app

Filed Aug 1, 2020 · Electrical, Lights · 107,484 miles · CA

Drove out of town and parked the vehicle in driveway for about 5 hours, when I retuned to drive it back (10 pm) center touch screen was blank. I noticed that there was loss of function of nearly everything in the vehicle. I could still drive it but with ability to use turn signal lights, or headlights (very dangerous drive at night). Steering wheel buttons, AC, audio, phone bluetooth, and all controls of the vehicle were completely lost. It was 90 degrees outside that night and had to drive without AC, I could not make or receive phone calls due to black screen, sun roof could not be opened. Basically the vehicle became a bare basic vehicle without any of the safety features or even the basic feature such as signal lights. I am not sure if there was an emergency if airbags would have responded either! The car felt just too scary to drive!! Odometer would not count the miles too, odometer is lost and app shows the mileage from yesterday (even though I drove 50 miles on it to get home), I even notice battery started draining faster while I was driving it back home.. Performed soft and hard reset per tesla website recommendations without ability to restore any of the functions or make the center screen display anything. I attempted connecting through the tesla app, and although I was able to connect to the vehicle, the car would not respond to app for any of the controls, climate etc. Contacted tesla next morning and they stated that since vehicle is out of warranty that I will have to bring it to service center or tow it if unsafe to drive and pay for repair to restore its functions. The small dash screen still was working, but continues to display a message to "wait while vehicle systems power up". It is completely an unsafe car at this time on every level

Filed Jul 27, 2020 · 77,000 miles · NC

Mcu failure - emmc failed, resulting in loss of HVAC, charging notifications, turn signal clicks, headlight controls, loss of rear view camera etc.

Filed Jul 24, 2020 · Electrical · 160,000 miles · NH · fire

Tl* the contact owns a 2014 tesla model s. The contact stated the while operating the vehicle the center touch screen display was inoperable and would not illuminate. Due to the display failure the rear view camera, turn signal lights and high beam lights would not activate. Also while charging, the battery would over heat and the odor of burning plastic was present. The vehicle was taken to the local tesla service center located at 210 andover st. Peabody ma.who reprogrammed the system but the failures continued to occur. The contact was informed that the display system needed to be replaced but the parts were not available. The failure mileage was 160,000.

Filed Jul 20, 2020 · Electrical, Lights · 46,000 miles · CA

When starting my vehicle, the vehicle's center console screen did not power on. The instrument cluster (behind steering wheel) did power on, but the vehicle was very slow (about 2 minutes) before it could be put into "drive" (the instrument cluster said that vehicle was powering up). I then attempted to restart the center console screen (mcu) manually (by pressing both buttons on steering wheel for 20 seconds), but nothing happened. I began driving, and noticed several functions were not working: when indicating turn signals, there was no sound, and using a large glass window to verify, the exterior turn signals were not lighting up. The rear view camera and parking sensors would not activate when car was in "reverse" gear. Headlights would turn on automatically when it was dark, but I had no daytime running lights (also verified with glass window). I could also not manually turn headlights / day time running lights on or off. The climate was off, and could not be controlled. Charging was limited, the vehicle would charge but a much slower rate than usual (the instrument cluster said it was charging at only 8 / 40 amps 240v). I continued to drive the vehicle for a week, for short distances, and the vehicle remained in the same state. Several months prior, I brought my vehicle to tesla for service, because of constant restarts of mcu every time vehicle was started, after a software update. I was told to update to next available version, which did resolve the issue. After further research, I discovered this is the first symptom of mcu failure, and I would experience frequent restarts of mcu while driving afterwards (which I did) until the unit would fail entirely (which it also did). I am surprised tesla did not warn me of any of these things when I brought the vehicle in for service, instead waiting until vehicle became unsafe to drive.

Filed Jun 29, 2020 · Electrical · 87,000 miles · FL

The media control unit (mcu) failed on my tesla in january 2020. The mcu controls safety features such as front and rear defrost, hazard lights, headlights, turn signals and charging for the main battery. The emmc chip failed when the vehicle was parked. The failure caused the vehicle to be inoperable.

Filed Jun 24, 2020 · Electrical · 191,000 miles · CA

The mcu, which is the large display and control screen started to fail. The heating and ventilation controls didn't work properly, and the bluetooth would not present call history, preventing safe vehicle use. About 6 weeks ago, the mcu failed completely, which prevented turning on the headlights manually. I had previosuly had set them to automatic, so they turned on at night, but I live in off a highway where it is mandatoryfor daytime headlight use, and I was unable to control them the failure in the mcu was determined to be the emmc which is the solid state hard drive in the mcu. It has a limited lifespan and they typically fail when they exceed their expect number of writes to the drive. Tesla informed me that they have changed the software so it doesn't write as much routine data to the ssd. I had the mcu replaced at a tesla service center on june 12, 2020, at a cost of $2180.06, since my standard and extended warranty had expired. My tesla has more than 191,000 miles on it. Most manual controls are inoperative, including the backup camera. Configuring the car is also not possible..

Filed Jun 20, 2020 · Electrical, Lights · 167,000 miles · NH

Tesla model s onboard memory has failed leading to no use of main interior screen. Out indicator lights and high beams do not work making it very unsafe to operate. This happens to many tesla's with the mcu v1. The chip they use becomes corrupted and can cause all sorts of damage.